So Frustrating!

Just another week here in Belgium really. Taylor was off at a Tour for most of the week so I was home alone for the week. The team rode really well at the tour and managed to pull off the win. Ryan Wills, from Whakatane managed to win overall and collect the yellow jersey which is an awesome result for the team.
The weather was real average in the second half of the week with big thunderstorms and torrential rain so I had to try and time my rides perfectly to not get wet or electrocuted. On Saturday night the thunder and lightning was pretty intense and I decided to watch a show on National Geographic channel about people being possessed. Not ideal on a stormy night when you have to sleep all by yourself so I had a pretty average sleep that night. I still got up early the next day and rode 60 odd km, came home cleaned up my bike and got ready for the race that afternoon. The race was only 3km up the road and it was I think a 19 lap course. There were only 90 or so starters which isn't big at all for a Belgium Kermesse. I was feeling bloody awesome and I managed to pick up 2 prime sprints which means pay day! 13 euro for every prime you win. (Definition of 'Prime Sprint' or 'Sprint Primes': First person to cross the line on a lap that is a prime sprint wins a certain amount of money. They tell you what laps are the prime sprint laps before the race and they wave a flag to let you know too.) I was getting really frustrated with myself and everyone else. I had told myself before the race that at these Kermesses, the breaks barely ever get away in the first half of the race so I should stay in the bunch and do no work for the first half but I was seeing good riders attack off the front and I got nervous so I would bridge across to them and then we would get caught. I did this way too many times. So sometimes I would stay in the bunch when a break went up the road and everyone would just sit on my wheel pretty much expecting me to bridge across which was bloody frustrating. I got really frustrated at one point and I broke away by myself to pick up a prime sprint but instead of sitting up after I won the sprint I just kept going to see if anyone would bridge across but no, the bunch started working together to catch me which they wouldn't of done if there was someone else up the road. It was so frustrating but that's racing and I have to learn to almost use that to my advantage. I think I showed everyone my cards to early and showed them that I was strong which I shouldn't have done because then, like they did, they will sit on your wheel and expect you to chase because you are one of the strongest in the group. So I need to learn to relax and trust myself that the race will pan out as I expected it to because it did. In the end a small bunch got away in the second half of the race which I new would happen. I was getting so angry with this one kid in particular. I was getting so worked up and I was hurling so much abuse to him, even more than dad does at the referee at Ice Hockey when he gets sent to the sin bin. He was such a potato. I think some of the retards from the hospital were let out, given bikes and told to race this race because there were some real cabbages in this race. Like for instance; there was a small bunch of us trying to chase this group down, this one guy was driving it hard on the front of our bunch and when he lapped off the guy behind decided to attack him and the bunch! That is the most stupidest and selfish thing to do in a race! What made it more frustrating is that when the small bunch got away no one was willing to take a turn on the front of our bunch to try and bring the group back but everyone was really keen to attack the bunch and try and bridge to the small group solo or with a couple other rider. It was so frustrating because then those numptys would blow up and then we would catch them 1km later. It would have been so much easier and energy efficient to work together and lap through as a bunch to try and catch back up to that group. It was easily the most frustrating race I had done and I was pretty disappointed with myself because I didn't listen to myself. I new how the race was going to play out and it did exactly how I said it would but I didn't trust myself which I need to learn to do more. FRUSTRATION!!! Ah well. I learnt and made some buck.
But yea, heading across the ditch to London tomorrow afternoon to meet up with mum and dad which is exciting. It's gone so quickly! I remember thinking a month ago that it's not long till mum and dad get here and that just felt like yesterday. Looking forward to checking out the sites and saying Ki Ora Ma 'n' Pa.
Been a pretty cruisey week this week. Made a mean as pie for dinner a couple nights ago. Lasted me a few days cause it was so huge. Kg of mince and a heap of vegetables and beans. So gutted that I forgot to put cheese under the top pastry though. Would've been a choice as mince and cheese pie. I was reading on Stuff.co.nz that the bakery cafe up in Botany Plaza won the best pie in NZ award so I'm looking to forward to putting one of those to the test. I think my pie might be able to compete with them, maybe. I'll chuck a picture up of it.
But yea that's about it. Nothing else spectacular has happened.
Oh yea, sorry Nans and Pops for leaving this a bit late. Dad said you guys were getting a bit worried that I hadn't put my blog up but yea here it is. I'm sure there'll be some errors in here cause I rushed through it. Sorry.

Ka Pie

Ka Pie (pun intended) 

It's been another good week. I think the form is coming along nicely and hopefully it stays for another 2 and a bit months. Had an alright race on Thursday at the Pro Kermesse. Pretty much all of the FDJ Pro Tour Team who weren't racing at the Tour De France were there and they controlled the bunch all day. It was a bloody hot day and our black riding kits didn't help with the heat. It was a pretty cool course, 13 laps of a 13km circuit, that had a small climb in it and a small cobble section near the finish. It took me a couple laps to get into it. My bike riding skills went out the door in the first couple laps for some reason and I was feeling really nervous but after a few laps my confidence level went back up. I was feeling quite good and I was sitting up the front at about 10th wheel and bridged across to small break up the road and I even had a little attack off the front of the bunch just to see what would happen. It all came to nothing but it was kind of cool to know that I am able to ride away from the bunch at a Pro Kermesse. I was then rolling around mid bunch for most of the day but near the end I think hunger and dehydration caught up with me, I was having to get a water every lap because it was so hot. I slowly started to feel more and more hungry and thirsty after every lap and drinking warm water really doesn't quench your thirst. I started falling further back in the bunch every lap which is the exact opposite of what you want to do because everyone starts to go harder and faster near the end and with FDJ driving it on the front for their sprinter, the pace was really going fast. I was in the worst spot possible for the cross wind section of the course and dropped with 1 and a half laps to go. So close to finishing. So the lessons I learnt at that race was that I need to hydrate a couple days before race day when it's weather like this because hydrating the night before isn't enough for me and I need to learn to eat more during the race. I do get a bit nervous trying to eat in big Kermesses like that because a lot of the times the courses are pretty technical and I do get a bit nervous taking my hands of the bars in big bunches like that but that's all just down to confidence and my confidence will grow the more I race. I also need to eat more often during the race instead of eating when I'm hungry because that is normally too late, you never really want to get hungry. Yea, a bit disappointed that I didn't quite get to finish but still kind of happy that I was able to have a crack off the front.
After the race, the team just sat around, chatted and had champagne and then the team manager shouted us dinner which was pretty awesome. It was a pretty cool just chilling together as a team and just talking shit really like we weren't talking about the race or cycling, just talking about random stuff.
Last night was Andrew's dads 60th birthday so the family organised a party for him and set up two big tents and tables and we had a massive BBQ. Taylor and I just sat outside and chatted to the team managers sons who help out the team as our mechanics sometimes and they were asking about NZ and stuff and they seem pretty keen to come over to NZ sometime.
Had a pretty solid week training over the weekend, managed to clock up 340k over the two days which is alright.
Have another Pro Kermesse on Sunday so I'll try to eat a lot more during the ride and drink more before the race. Should be good.
That's about it from me. Pretty gutted that 7 Days is taking a break, got nothing to look forward to on Fridays now. But yea, nothing else really happened last week. Oh yea! I made blueberry and lemon muffins and they looked nothing like I thought they would. They tasted awesome as though so it was all good. I put way to many blueberries in, which isn't a bad thing at all, and I didn't wash them (they were frozen) so I think the juice on the outside of the berries turned the muffins purple. I also lost a lemon seed in the mixture, still haven't found it and I've only got one muffin left so it's either in there or I've eaten it. I leave you a picture at the bottom.

Yea. Thanks for reading. Sorry if there's any grammar or spelling mistakes. Feeling quite tired today cause it's hard to sleep with the heat and the flies flying in my ears and face in the morning.

Nick

Still tasted awesome 

Well I think summer has finally settled in. Have had a couple weeks of sunny hot weather and I'm loving it. Spent most of my time riding my Time Trial bike last week preparing for the Top Competition Team Time Trial on Sunday. I was looking forward to chucking on the disk wheel and going for a good hoon on the TT rig. It was " "bit of a drive" according to Andrew. It was only about 1.5 hours, that's just a casual drive down to Cambridge, but if you're driving for over an hour and a half here in Belgium then you're probably in a different country by the end of the trip. We went across Belgium and were near the very bottom of Holland, very close to Liege. The area where the TT course was very nice, lots of very big nice houses and nice farm land and I think I saw some wineries, not really sure though cause I trying to pay attention to the race. The course was 3 laps of an 18.5km lap totaling to 56km. It was an awesome course that suited me pretty well. It had a bit of everything in it with a couple small climbs, false flats, downhill sections, a technical corners and a dog. We were about 5km into our ride and we were approaching a right hander when a small dog just casually comes trotting around the corner. Then you hear from the back of the group 'aw shit, it's a dog!" Everyone had seen it and we were slamming on the anchors! I was sitting second wheel out of the 6 riders in the team and my breaks weren't working to good so I went flying past the rider in front of me! (Who needs breaks for a Time Trail anyway!) Luckily we were all on the left hand side of the road approaching the corner and the dog was on the right so we were able to avoid it but we were still unsure if it was gonna freak out and run into us. It was a bloody hot day and I couldn't fit a bottle cage on to my bike so I went drinkless but I still managed to survive, only taking a sip out of Taylors drink once. We lost one of our riders early because he had an injury but we could still finish with only 4 riders so the 5 of us were rolling around alright for pretty much the rest of the race. There were 4 kiwis in the team, including me, doing the race and two Belgys and everyone worked pretty well considering the 6 of us had never done a TTT all together before. I was feeling really good the whole race and was doing some good turns on the front. On the 2nd lap I hit a really big bump in the road and my bars slipped down a little bit, sounded like I cracked my bars but I didn't find any crack, really hope I didn't. We dropped our last rider with about 5km to go and crossed the line. I was pretty happy with how I was feeling for my first TT in a while. The team did well to. We came 14th out of the 20 teams which Isn't too bad considering these are top Belgium teams we were racing against and we just rocked up there, no Team Time Trial training what so ever and some teams had been riding at that course for a few days preparing for this race.
After the race we went to a bar restaurant and had a couple beers and some dinner there. The restaurant was an old farm house I think and had a big court area in the middle where we sat and ate and in the entrance that had old German plane engines and in the backyard they had a US tank and a US helicopter that kind of looks like the ones in M*A*S*H*. They had a couple big old airplane bombs too.
Got another Pro Kermesse on Thursday which should be good fun, try and avoid the ditches this time.
Like I said, summer is properly here now, all the fields have something growing in it. They love to grow their corn here but it's pretty annoying cause now you can't really see around the corners so now you have to slow right down a pop your head out cause the roads are so skinny that you can only fit one car down it.
Taylor and I are getting sick of the flies so Taylor went out and bought those fly stickers that you stick to your windows. The flies mainly like the area where the computer is on the table and there's two windows, one behind me and one to the left of me so Taylor stuck one on each window and the flies are really loving the window to the left of me. There are about 16 dead flies on the ledge, and one in a spider web (I killed a fly just then! That's the third one I've got since I started writing this blog) and on the other window there are only about 6 dead ones. You know you're starting to get bored when you start counting the amount of flies you have killed for that today.
Taylor and I went out to Kortrijk this morning and met up with another Kiwi rider and had a look around the local markets that they set up every Monday morning. Had a nice coffee with my name written in it and then had lunch at a Wok Noodle place which was some good kai then went out for a nice ride in the sun when we got back.

So yea, I'll leave you a couple pictures below.

Thanks for reading

Nick

My Latte Macchiato in Kortrijk 

Near the entrance to the bar restaurant place

The US tank. Couldn't get a photo of the helicopter cause it was behind a fence

I've Had Much Better Weeks Than This Before

Well this week definitely was not the best week I've ever had. Started off with me being sick for most of the week. I had a terrible sleep on Wednesday and a cracking headache all through the night and day. Friday, I was still not feeling to great so I just kept munching on the multi-vitamins so that I could race on Sunday. I was feeling alright on Saturday but I still woke up with a really sore throat and during my training my chest began to become really sore when breathing so I just took it easy. Come race day at the Pro Kermesse in Roselare, all I wanted to do was sit in the bunch, do no work and finish. That goal didn't really turn out too well for me. It was quite a technical course that goes straight through the middle of a town so there were lots of tight narrow corners and traffic islands to avoid. We headed out of town on to a narrow road with fields either side of it. I was riding on the left side of the road, right in the gutter, sometimes doing a bit of off-roading. Then I took road cycling off-roading a bit to the extreme. We were riding along and I was moving up the bunch on the far left when all of a sudden, the road basically just stopped; I couldn't see the road at all, just a bit of gravel and then about a 7 foot drop into a ditch. I was heading straight for the ditch! I had a quick decision to make: I could try and save myself and swing out to the right, in the gravel but have my front wheel wash out in the gravel and go down hard in the gravel and take down half the bunch then probably tumble down into the ditch orrr just lift up the front and do a one handed back flip into the ditch and hope I stick the landing.  Couldn't quite get the full rotation in my one handed back flip but I lifted the front wheel, landed in the 7 foot ditch and forward flipped in the deep grass. I opened up my eyes to find myself lying on my back, feet in the air, feet still clipped into the pedals, bike directly above me and a really sore crotch. Not the best way to start the first lap. I unclipped my feet from the pedals and tried climbing out of the ditch which was bit of a struggle, it was a bitch of a ditch. Main thing was that the bike and wheels were fine because I was borrowing Taylor's carbon wheels. I was all good as well, just a nice tingling feeling on my arms from the lovely stinging nettles that I met with at the bottom, a few little cuts on my elbow that bleed out really good just to make it look that much more worse looking and a little graze on the top of my wee wee. The stem of the bike just missed the important bits but just got the top which was really painful. I got back on the bike and rode in the car convoy to try and catch back up to the race but my chest was really starting to hurt from my sickness. It got to a point where I couldn't breathe because it hurt to much. So it wasn't much of a race for me. This week hasn't brought me down at all, I'm still feeling positive and ready for a good second half of the season. (I think the crash was just too funny to sit and have a cry about. Apparently the bunch saw it and just started cracking up laughing.) Still recovering a bit from sickness but I think I'm nearly back at 100%. The nice weather is helping me recover too with a good dose of the vitamin D. Been chilling in shorts and a singlet for most of the day, don't think anyone could do that back home.
There's a Top Competition Team TimeTrial on this Sunday that I will be doing with the team so just be riding the TT bike this week and getting ready for the race. First TT that I've done for a while so I have no idea how I will go but hopefully everything will go good and there's no ditches in the course.
My roommate, Taylor, is back from London so it's nice to have someone to ride and talk with and share with cooking and cleaning duties. Then in a few weeks, mum and dad come over and I get to do some travelling with them around London, Belgium and France which I'm looking forward to. France is pretty much just up the road but I still haven't crossed the border. We've ridden along side the border quite a few times and ridden into French speaking Belgium but still not France.
It's pretty cool with the Tour de France being on aswell because we get back from our ride, flick the TV on and watch the tour. No having to stay up all night to watch the racing. Watching it gets you motivated as well, makes you want to go out and ride your bike. Watching the hilly stages makes me want to go out and ride some hills but sadly, there are none here.
Yea that's basically it. Didn't do much this week cause of sickness but I'm starting to feel better and hopefully I'll be right for the weekend. Some solid training this week should do me good for the weekend.
Yea, onwards and upwards.

Thanks for reading

Nick

Another Good Week

I'm feeling good again which is a really good sign. Smashed some more steak and spinach this week cause I think that is really helping. It's been a pretty cruisy week this week, nothing too exciting. Taylor, Maddy and I drove up to the team house in Zottegem to pick up some bike frames for Andrew and on our way back we stopped in Oudenaarde for a feed and to have a look at the Flanders Cycling Museum. After our coffee and bagel's we walked across to the museum, I've heard some pretty cool things about this place and I was looking forward to having a look around. We get to the front door and it's locked but we can see two staff members behind the counter. We tried getting their attention but they were just pissing around behind the counter yapping away to each other and then they just walk off. Had a look at the opening hours, it was only 3 O'Clock and the place closed at 6 so I don't know why the doors were locked. I was pretty gutted cause I was really looking forward to having a look around there. Have to go back some other time, maybe with mum and dad when they come over, I don't know if I can be bothered trying to explain to them what everything is at the museum though. I can picture them asking "Didn't they have to wear helmets in the Tour de France?"
Had a good training ride on Wednesday. Taylor did 199km and I did 200km (hitting that 200km mark is so much more satisfying than doing 199km). Taylor and I did 2 hours before we hoped on the local bunch ride. The bunch ride took us down to the French border and we basically rode along side the French border, not far from Roubaix, we didn't quite cross it though. We were riding in French speaking Belgium though cause the town names and signs were all in French. After the bunch we took the long way home to make it a 200km ride and I was feeling really good, until I had been home for a couple hours, then I crashed and burned and slept like a baby. Pretty much just did recovery rides for the rest of the week so I could recover in time for Sunday.
On Sunday, I decided to ride across to the town of Inglemunster where they were holding quite a big kermesse. There were heaps of riders, I would say over 150 starters. My legs were feeling pretty sweet. On the side section of the course we were pushing 60kmph. I was able to go off the front and bridge across to break aways pretty easily. It was just a real pain because every time I would bridge across to a break away group or start a break of my own, everyone in the break would stop working after about a km and then we would get caught again by the main peloton. This happened to me about 4-5 times through out the race and that's just a waste of energy. There was a big split of the field that contained about 35 riders. I managed to get into a chasing group of about 12 riders to try and chase them down. The group was not working well at all and I got really frustrated so I just put my head down and attacked them in the cross wind section. I don't think it was the smartest thing to do but ironically the group started working together to try and catch me. Bloody hell! Now the work! Once they caught me, they just went back to not lapping through again. There were a couple of us trying to drive it but it just kept getting mucked up by people not lapping through. I stupidly over worked myself in that group and in the cross wind section I found myself at the back of the group which is where you don't want to be in a cross wind section because there is no draft back there. I couldn't hold on to that group. I finished the race with a bunch of about 40 riders and ended up in 88th place. At least I finished which I was happy about. I just need to learn to not work myself so hard in break away groups and be able to know what break away group will be successful cause I'm always picking the wrong group, wasting my energy and then getting caught again by the main field. It's pretty frustrating but I guess it all comes with experience.
I've got another Pro Kermesse this weekend and I'm excited cause Taylor is letting me borrow his old carbon wheels, I haven't raced on carbons since I cracked mine back in April. These wheels will be a lot faster and lighter than my cruddy heavy training wheels that I've been racing on.
Taylor has gone up to London with Maddy for the week so I'm on my own this week. Had a solid clean of the house today. Spent about 3-4 hours cleaning up the place, I think it's the cleanest it has ever been cause I think I found an old shopping list under the couch  from the two guys who were living here last year. They needed kidney beans, tortillas and some other stuff, I think they were having Mexican that night. The ground was a grave yard for flies. We killed so many of them with this giant fly swat that I bought for Andrew in Oudernaarde. We gave it a test run in our house before we gave it to Andrew and their is bit of a design flaw. It's a giant fly swat with giant squares in the middle of the swat so sometimes the flies just go straight through the squares. Ah well, it was only 1.50 euro and Andrew had a good laugh when we gave it to him.
Yea that's basically my week. Nothing too special happened. Just happy with how my legs and body are going. It's a pretty nice night tonight, I'll chuck a photo up to show yous.

As you can see I even gave the windows a good clean

Thanks for reading

Nick